Summer nights from childhood
Listening to the swamp frogs' chorus at dusk
Hearing the freight train blow its whistle
As it rumbled through town,
Our only station had closed years before
But that whistle's melancholy call
Still came through the humid darkness

Lying on my bed, watching the sudden
Black silhouette of the red maple
Against the lighting-whitened sky
Leaves trembling with the rainfall

The smell of a summer pond
Cool and green, reflecting the pines
Watching the minnows that swam around our ankles
Diving for cool rocks
Into the cooler depths


*****

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